Modern business practices often require that several persons meet on the telephone to engage in a conference call. The conference call has introduced certain applications and techniques that are superior to those found in a meeting with persons physically present in the same location. For example, a conference call attendee who is not participating at the moment may wish to mute their audio output and simply listen to the other conferencee. This allows the particular conferee to work on another project while still participating in the conference.
While the conference call has been substantially helpful in minimizing travel expenses and other costs associated with business over long distances, significant obstacles still remain in accomplishing the same tasks with the same efficiency as one would in having a meeting with all persons in the same physical location. For example, the audio received by a particular conferencee may be inadequately balanced between the other conferencees such that one conferencee mutes or makes more difficult to hear the comments and participation of the other conferencees or to distinguish between other conferencees.